The applicant's French Pat. No. 2 098 825 already relates to a programmer for electric household appliances, comprising a reversing cam, driven in continuous rotation by a motor and on which are pivotally mounted a first lever and a pawl, a fixed plate provided with an opening into which the first lever may penetrate, under the action of elastic means integral with the reversing cam and the pawl, to allow the pawl to engage with the teeth of a driving cam of an assembly of programming cams and thus rotate this cam assembly step by step, and a second lever which, via a timing wheel, may, for a determined period of time, prevent the first lever from penetrating in said opening and consequently prevent the rotation of said cam assembly.
In this device, the second lever is actuated by a third lever, itself actuated directly by the timing wheel. Apart from the fact that this timing wheel is driven by the motor, via a reduction gear, the duration of the stopping of the assembly of programming cams, or timing, can only be modified as a function of the profile of the inner periphery of the timing wheel. It is obvious that in such a case, the number of timings of different durations which may be obtained is fairly limited.